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Set up goose in Zed

Zed can run goose as an ACP agent. Install goose from the ACP Registry for the simplest setup, or configure it manually to use your own goose binary and environment overrides.

Install goose from the ACP Registry​

Zed has built-in ACP Registry support, so it can download and run goose for you without manual configuration.

  1. Open Zed
  2. Open Agent Settings
  3. Click Add Agent, then choose Install from Registry
  4. Select goose

A registry-installed goose runs the same goose acp server and reads your existing goose configuration, so your providers, models, and extensions carry over. Zed keeps the installed version up to date for you.

Configure goose manually​

Use a custom agent if you want to run your own goose binary, such as a local development build, or pass environment overrides.

Prerequisites​

Ensure you have both Zed and the goose CLI installed:

Verify goose is installed:

goose --version

Add goose to your Zed settings​

  1. Open Zed
  2. Open Agent Settings, click Add Agent, then choose Add Custom Agent. Zed scaffolds an agent_servers entry and opens your settings file
  3. Edit the entry so it runs goose:
{
  "agent_servers": {
    "goose": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "goose",
      "args": ["acp"]
    }
  }
}

You can now interact with goose directly in Zed. ACP sessions use the extensions enabled in your goose configuration, so their tools are also available in Zed.

Override the provider and model​

By default, goose uses the provider and model defined in your configuration file. Override them for a specific agent configuration with the GOOSE_PROVIDER and GOOSE_MODEL environment variables.

This example configures two goose agents with different model settings:

{
  "agent_servers": {
    "goose": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "goose",
      "args": ["acp"]
    },
    "goose (GPT-4o)": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "goose",
      "args": ["acp"],
      "env": {
        "GOOSE_PROVIDER": "openai",
        "GOOSE_MODEL": "gpt-4o"
      }
    }
  }
}

Use Zed MCP servers with goose​

MCP servers in Zed's context_servers configuration are automatically available to goose. This lets native Zed features and the goose agent use the same MCP servers.

{
  "context_servers": {
    "filesystem": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem",
        "/path/to/allowed/dir"
      ]
    }
  },
  "agent_servers": {
    "goose": {
      "type": "custom",
      "command": "goose",
      "args": ["acp"]
    }
  }
}

All MCP servers in context_servers are available to goose when they use stdio (command-based) or HTTP transports. goose does not support servers using the deprecated SSE transport.

If a server in context_servers has the same name as a goose extension, goose uses its own configuration.